Sunday, May 11, 2008

First leg completed

It's finally presentable - click on this to read the 11 page excerpt from Power Out:


Doesn't necessarily mean I won't revise it before making any sort of announcement about it tomorrow. I'm still very on the fence about the lettering. It adds a personal touch, but I am not a gifted letterer by any stretch of the imagination. Pretty much everyone tells me to letter my own stuff, and all my favorite cartoonists do it, so I feel like it's a necessary step. Maybe I'm just not ready? Don't know, maybe it'll grow on me. If you have any strong feelings let me know. I also hate Justin's faces on the fourth page. Blech! But I might just say f*¢k it.

It could still use some work, but I really like my description of the book on the title page. Was at a party this weekend and when people asked me what my book was about, I was like "it's a coming of age novel set in a New England suburb during a power out and there's a party and he gets lost in the woods and then lights candles and other stuff happens" and I could just see their eyes glaze over. Now it sounds relevant and exciting.

I'll confess that I'm pretty intimidated sitting at the precipice of really starting this book - now that this excerpt is done, I have to tackle the whole thing now. I'm revising the entire script now, as I've been looking at it and realizing that all my favorite parts are at the end, when things get kind of surreal. There's going to have to be a buildup to that; the novel starts too much like a conventional family drama. I might have it begin with Justin living on the watertower, pages of his constellation books ripped out and held down with spare rocks, waking up to the sound of the National Guard sounding some huge convoy-style horn. Little more intrigue than Justin sitting on a couch playing video games while his overbearing mom tells his Dad what to put in the trunk of his car, and the reader will be know it's going somewhere. And I might replace the "can't start the lawnmower" scene with Justin finding some sort of dead animal in the path of the mower, to tie that theme in earlier.

I think I've finally overplayed the last Radiohead album, so I've been listening to St. Vincent (I think she's from Polyphonic Spree? I've never heard their albums). Good stuff. Her music is just as beautiful and psychopathic as she looks.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i LIKE THE TOP OF THE WATER TOWER BIT...